[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 162 (2016), Part 10]
[Senate]
[Pages 13420-13421]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                 PRESCRIPTION DRUG AND HEROIN EPIDEMIC

  Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, I want to start by thanking my colleague 
from Indiana for his indulgence, and I look forward to hearing his 
remarks. We were both on the floor today waiting to speak while we 
tried to work out differences with the continuing resolution. I am 
hopeful those issues can be resolved so we can have a process to move 
forward with our spending bills.
  In the meantime, I need to talk on the floor today about an ongoing 
issue in all of our communities around the country, sadly, which is 
this issue of prescription drug abuse, heroin, and now fentanyl. It is 
really an epidemic. It is now the No. 1 cause of accidental death in my 
home State of Ohio, and more recently it is the No. 1 cause of 
accidental death in our country, surpassing car accidents. It is 
something that is taking thousands of lives every year, and it is 
something that is tearing families apart, causing crime, creating real 
hardship for so many families, and hurting the economy.
  President Obama and his administration declared this week 
Prescription Opioid and Heroin Epidemic Awareness Week, and I commend 
him for that. I think raising the awareness of this issue is really 
important right now. Having a national conversation on this issue is 
really important right now.
  This is the opportunity I take every week to come to the floor. I 
have been doing it since before we passed the Comprehensive Addiction 
and Recovery Act back in March. I come every week to talk on the floor 
about the importance of addressing the issue. Initially, it was to get 
the legislation passed, and we did that. Now we are implementing the 
legislation and even adding additional legislation because of this new 
wave of addiction that we are seeing and overdoses and deaths based on 
synthetic heroin, also called fentanyl or carfentanil or U-4, which is 
coming into our communities.
  About once a month, I have a tele-townhall, and I ask people on the 
call a number of questions that they answer about their top priorities. 
I started out by asking this question: How many of you have been 
directly affected by the heroin and prescription drug epidemic in Ohio? 
I will tell you, sadly, that in the last few calls we have had 
surprising results, which is that roughly half of the people on the 
call say they have been affected, whether I am calling people in 
Cleveland, Columbus, or in rural areas--no matter where it is. I 
recently called people in Canton, OH, and Wood County, outside of 
Toledo, and 49 percent of the people on the call said yes, they have 
been affected directly.
  Earlier this month I talked to people in my town of Cincinnati, and 
it was 51 percent. Here is something even more alarming. A couple of 
months ago, I called people in southeast Ohio. Some of you know that 
Portsmouth, OH, is an area that, unfortunately, has been hit 
particularly hard. In fact, there is a book that some may have read, 
and if you have not and you are interested in this issue, I would 
recommend it. It is called ``Dreamland,'' by a man named Sam Quinones. 
What the author talks about is the history behind this prescription 
drug, heroin, and opioid epidemic and some suggestions for us on how to 
address it.
  In any case, I called southeast Ohio. ``Dreamland'' is based on a 
community center swimming pool. It is the name of a swimming pool in 
Portsmouth, OH, and 68 percent of the people on the call said they were 
directly affected. Typically, we have about 20 to 25,000 people on the 
call, and 68 percent said they were directly affected. That is 
alarming, but it doesn't surprise me because I see it when I am home.
  So many other people are seeing it now, too. As some know, recently 
there was something that went viral on Facebook. It was a photograph of 
two people passed out in the front of a car and a child in the 
backseat. It happened in northeast Ohio, in East Liverpool, OH. This 
has been shared thousands and thousands of times, and commented on 
thousands and thousands of times. The two people in the front seat were 
the grandmother and her boyfriend and a grandson was in the backseat, 
age 4. They were passed out, overdosed in the front seat, and he was 
looking confused and alarmed in the backseat.
  This, unfortunately, is something that is happening around our 
country. The East Liverpool police said at the time:

       It is time that the non-drug-using public sees what we are 
     dealing with on a daily basis. . . . The poison known as 
     heroin has taken a strong grip on many communities--not just 
     ours.

  I agree with them. They see these images every day, not just in East 
Liverpool but in your hometown and in your county. This is not the only 
child who has watched his parents overdose. In Cleveland, 2 weeks ago, 
a 6-year-old boy was found in Barkwell Park shaking and crying next to 
his parents, who were both unconscious from heroin overdoses.
  Another incident that has received national attention is the spike of 
24 heroin overdoses in Akron, OH, 1 week ago today. So far 112 people 
in Akron, OH, have died from overdoses this year. That is already a 
record. Already this year more people have died in Akron than all of 
last year. This follows an even larger spike of overdoses in my 
hometown of Cincinnati, OH, where since August 19, there have been 300 
heroin overdoses. During a 6-day period there were 174 overdoses. I 
went to the firehouse that responded to the largest number of those 
overdoses and talked to the firefighters about it. They talked about 
administering Narcan. This miracle drug actually can reverse the 
overdose. Typically, it is administered once. With regard to these 
overdoses, they saved so many lives--34 lives. They had to use Narcan 
not once, not twice, not three times but four or five times. We found 
out later--and I was able to get samples to Cincinnati to find this 
out--that there was carfentanil mixed with the heroin. This is a 
synthetic drug that traffickers are now using that is far more powerful 
even than heroin. Carfentanil is actually something that is a sedative 
for large animals such as elephants, and yet traffickers are using this 
along with heroin.
  The Hamilton County coroner confirmed that eight of the overdoses in 
this 6-day period were a direct result of carfentanil. Some of these 
victims were not brought back to life. Some of them did pass away. But 
these brave first responders responded quickly, professionally, and 
were able to save all but 4 or 5 lives out of 174 in a 6-day period--
incredible. This new drug called fentanyl is incredibly powerful. It is 
a substance so strong that only a few flakes of it ingested by a human 
being can kill them.
  If you want an idea of how addictive this stuff is, consider the 
story of a woman in Massillon, OH, who last Saturday used heroin with 
her boyfriend. He died of an overdose right next to her, and, according 
to police, after he died, she left his corpse lying there for 11 hours 
while she went out to get more heroin.

[[Page 13421]]

  I have met with addicts who are still using, and I have met with 
those in recovery all over Ohio. I have met with several hundred people 
who have a story to tell. I am told again and again by those in 
recovery the same thing: The drug becomes everything. The drug becomes 
more important than family, more important than work, more important 
than anything, leading them to do what many of these people have never 
done before, which is commit crimes to pay for their habit.
  As addictive as heroin is, fentanyl can be 50 to 100 times more 
powerful. According to the DEA, the Drug Enforcement Agency, 
carfentanil can be many times more powerful, 10 times as powerful as 
morphine. It is used primarily to take down elephants and used as a 
sedative. The police officer in Newtown, OH, who heads up our Hamilton 
County drug task force said: ``The side effect of carfentanil is 
death.''
  These synthetic drugs are contributing in Ohio to our rapid increase 
in overdoses. Since 2000, the number of annual opioid overdoses in Ohio 
has increased dramatically. We are losing one life to overdose every 3 
hours. We happen to have information now coming in on fentanyl. Just in 
the last 2 years, according to records, from 2013 to 2015, we saw a 13-
fold increase in fentanyl-related deaths. Just 3 years ago, about 1 in 
20 deaths in Ohio was a result of fentanyl. Now it is more than one in 
three. Sadly, I expect that number to rise substantially this year, 
based on the information we have.
  The message today for those who might be listening or a family member 
who might be listening is, if you are suffering from this addiction, 
get treatment. Find some place that provides treatment, longer term 
recovery. This legislation, the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery 
Act, which passed this House with a vote of 92 to 2, will help provide 
for treatment and recovery. It is the first time we have ever dealt 
with recovery in the Congress. It is very important.
  If you don't know whether the heroin that is on the street contains 
these deadly synthetic drugs, you need to be extremely, extremely 
careful. As Coroner Sammarco in Hamilton County puts it, every time you 
buy heroin or every time you inject it, ``you may be literally gambling 
with your life.''
  These drugs that are devastating Ohio don't come from Ohio. They 
don't come from any of our States. We are told they come from overseas, 
primarily from China. There are laboratories in China that are 
developing this poison--this fentanyl and carfentanil. Some of the 
labs, we are told, also are in India.
  The drugs that are coming from China and India then come through the 
U.S. mail. It comes from their postal system and our postal system into 
the United States. It is unbelievable, but the poison is coming in the 
mail to our communities. It is easy to do. Because unlike private 
carriers, such as UPS or FedEx, in the mail system a package can be 
sent without having any information attached to it. It shouldn't be 
that easy, and it doesn't have to be. We want to close this loophole. 
It is a commonsense idea that will help to keep our streets safer and 
help prevent some of these deadly overdoses from synthetic heroin.
  Customs and Border Protection has told us that if we had advance 
electronic data on these packages from overseas, like we must have from 
private carriers, such as UPS or FedEx, it would help to ensure that 
these dangerous drugs wouldn't end up in the hands of the drug 
traffickers or, worse yet, in the hands of our family members and 
friends.
  That is why we introduced the Synthetics Trafficking and Overdose 
Prevention Act, or STOP Act. It is very simple. It is to help keep this 
poison off the streets by closing a loophole and requiring that same 
advance electronic data to come with all these packages coming from 
overseas showing where it is coming from, what is in it, and where it 
is going. They are using the mail system because they don't have to 
provide that now.
  This legislation goes hand in hand with the Comprehensive Addiction 
and Recovery Act that we talked about earlier, which both Houses passed 
by nearly unanimous votes and the President signed in July. This 
legislation is a tremendous step forward and is very comprehensive, 
dealing with the prevention, intervention, treatment, and recovery and 
helping to provide law enforcement officers with the Narcan they need. 
It helps in getting the drugs off the shelves with the take-back 
program. It is a good bill, but I think this is complementary to it--to 
deal with it now and to stop this new surge of fentanyl and 
carfentanil.
  I urge the administration, especially in light of these tragic events 
recently and during this Prescription Opioid and Heroin Epidemic 
Awareness Week to implement the CARA legislation as soon as possible. 
There are a number of new programs that must be implemented for our 
veterans and for pregnant women and the babies born with dependency to 
ensure they are getting the funding that they need. The President and 
the administration, if they get these programs up and running, will be 
able to make a bigger difference sooner.
  Let's also increase the funding for opioid programs. We have a 47-
percent increase in the funding for this year, the fiscal year we are 
in right now. But we are coming to the end of the fiscal year. CARA has 
another $181 million per year in authorized funding per year going 
forward for this opioid issue--heroin, prescription drugs, fentanyl. We 
should make a down payment for that in this continuing resolution. I 
know it is only a short-term continuing resolution that we are talking 
about on the floor here today in order to keep the funding going. We 
need to make a down payment to ensure CARA is funded.
  If you are one of the 92 Senators who supported the CARA Act, I hope 
you will look at the STOP Act. It is complementary to CARA. It will 
help deal with the very real problems we face by limiting the supply of 
these dangerous drugs. It is a bipartisan bill. Last week, Patrick 
Tiberi and Richard Neal introduced the STOP Act in the House. So we 
have a companion bill in the House that is bipartisan. They both have a 
real passion for this issue, and I appreciate them.
  Everything that we are doing in this area is important right now. 
Every Senator should be involved. If you are tough on crime, you should 
care about the increase in crime that is being created by this. If you 
are concerned about the innocent victims of an addiction epidemic, you 
should support this legislation to help protect those children who are 
being born with addictions. If you want to be tougher on China or if 
you want better border security, you should support this legislation to 
try to shut off this poison coming into our States from other 
countries. If you care about----
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has used 10 minutes.
  Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for 1 additional 
minute.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, again, this is an issue that has brought 
us all together in the past. Let's continue to work together on this on 
a bipartisan basis to begin to turn the tide on this epidemic before it 
is too late, before we lose more of our young people, before we have 
more communities devastated by this crisis.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Hoeven). The Senator from Michigan.

                          ____________________